this week's top stories on. fever pitch tensions at the u.n. general assembly over spill as the iranian president riles the u.s. with offensive rhetoric once again. vast oil and gas resources beneath the arctic ice heat up competition over that region prompting countries to seek a compromise inside the russian capital. shifting far right is that nationalism is on the rise following a string of successes immigration political parties in europe.

we're highlighting the week's top stories here on a very warm welcome. this week a global issues discussed at the u.n. general assembly have been overshadowed by a provocative speech by the iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad he's a laura lister explains why some delegates were so offended they stood up and walked out. with the fanfare on the streets of new york this week. no one could miss the spectacle of more than one hundred ninety world leaders descending upon the united nations for the annual general assembly. stealing the spotlight on the world stage a face off between iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad and u.s. president barack obama obama defended u.n. sanctions the u.s.

has spearheaded over iran's nuclear program though he called for dialogue on the door remains open to diplomacy should iran choose to walk through. the dialogue awkward dinner job responded with drove the u.s. and european union delegations out of the assembly hall all together he claimed nine eleven was an inside job by america as a middle. most people believe that some segments within the u.s. government has traded the attack to reverse the decline in the u.s. economy and his grip in the middle east in order to save the zionist regime. may have lost some of his audience inside the halls but he continued the conversation in public where you're smiling do you believe or started that the government had a head about eleven and what seemed like interviews with almost every network and you had a captive audience on the street or did they have going activist to protest against his visit almost daily i mean. pomp and circumstance aside

ahmadinejad said he may return to the negotiating table if the security council plays nice iran has always be ready for a dialogue based on respect and justice and the international community warned of where an escalation in the conflict could lead and these forces used against iran i believe this would be the shortest way to the radicals in their own. prevailing and deciding that now that we will strike we must have dinner with us and talk of m d g's or millennium development goals of fighting hunger and poverty amidst a global recession countries were more measured in making pledges for too long we've measured our efforts by the dollars we spent on the food that we delivered. the conference concluded with deep concern that the u.n. is falling far short of conquering problems such as world poverty and malnutrition

it appeared no country yesterday we did morris they. fell short of conquering their hunger with the finest cuisine new york has to offer but this time of the year you have the fresh orange bar truffles that will do all make up out of there were black truffle sauce and i will show you the truffle stable sides and after a week of traffic truffles and talk the press is already packing up despite debates continuing next week as global problems persist the u.n.g.a. remains a convenient place for world leaders to share their opinions and ideas people hope that they care even if nothing changes after this week as to whether any of the rhetoric becomes reality or that we're just going to have to wait and see next year or at leicester artie's. well taken the rostrum of the un general assembly many participants talked about mutual obligations of democracy and human rights but some critics say the host nation should take a closer look at domestic abuses before preaching to the rest of the world. as

world leaders gathered at the united nations today we must. be living up to our mutual responsibility the voice of america took to the podium in the universal declaration of human rights. we recognize the inherent dignity rights of every individual yet three miles south from barack obama's lecture on moral principles one woman languishes in this federal jail behind me stripped many say of all her dignity allegedly at the hands of u.s. officials. pakistani born u.s. educated a neuroscientist mother of three and the doctor us mainstream media jobbed levy. a so-called terrorist never charged with committing an act of terror i mean i think his story is really just a symbol of

a broader problem which has gone largely unnoticed which is that there are you know hundreds and if not thousands of people who have been disappeared at the hands of. you know either the bush administration or we don't know perhaps it continues into the obama administration and have never there the captors have never been held to account family spokesperson. says before publicized arrest in two thousand and eight the mit graduate was tortured and secretly detained in the notorious prison she was kidnapped in pakistan with her three children in march of two thousand and three no one knows where they are for a period of five years until of course the united states government announces that she is in custody in afghanistan and foster says he is among the countless faces illegally swept up by a known forces fighting this so-called global war on terror we believe that the

u.s. cover. men had a role in her disappearance and imprisonment for the missing five years. overseas siddiqi has become known as the daughter of pakistan. thousands have stormed the streets. proclaiming her a victim of america's post nine eleven justice system a system creating more enemies than friends this was never about doubt that this was about the u.s. trying to see if it's being done so i think you should you can you just do that but what do you do in that in in the process was that it smashed it's one thing that it stood for and that was the power of justice and it has just lost that and that is in front of the will was amnesty international headquartered in manhattan for decades was staging noisy worldwide campaigns to free people they say are political prisoners often as far as burma or north korea but not in the case of

a city who was imprisoned and tried next door in new york city key supporters sara flounders says the so-called pioneers of human rights abroad have blatantly turned away from a horrific problem here at home not to address us on the where people are held and under horrendous conditions for true abuse held in solitary confinement the first obligation always to address the issues and the conduct of your own government thursday morning after he was sentenced to eighty six years in prison her crime attempted assault against a u.s. soldier yet the alleged crimes against her never investigated it's been absolutely horrifying to see that obama who ran for president as the anti bush and who was so adamantly opposed to the perversion of the united states constitution

to see. now the continuation of all of his policies that he has adopted from the bush administration has been absolutely outrageous thank you very much. marina portnoy party. it's nearly ten minutes past the hour here in the russian capital with. come. later this hour struck by prophets. was faith in the government i think it's just a power struggle in washington now are two years out and about in the big apple here and what people have to say about america's economic situation. violence in iraq coincides with the end of the u.s. military campaign there remain over whether local forces can maintain security. austria's right wing freedom party is hoping an unseen muslim computer game will

help it win a vote since sunday's provincial elections if successful this will be yet another victory for europe's far right after sweden's recent general elections. takes a look at what is fear to be the rise of islamophobia in europe. was the by by most game is as simple as its message they came and shoot down as many new mosques as you can as they rise relentlessly above asters alpine skier lied if you're not quick enough what the country is islam ised some of that is so you know we're defending our rights our traditions our culture we don't want to be dissolved into islam nor do we want there to be parallel islamic societies in our country we released by the right wing freedom party as part of its bid for election and the regional government in styria austria second largest province the game has hit the

wrong nerve within twenty four hours it received more than two hundred thousand web hits within a week it was banned the computer game may have been just a small part of a political campaign but the reaction has been nothing but a firestorm of outrage there and five hundred thousand muslims in austria together with the greens their community leaders sued the freedom party emotions in the game . is a reality if we want to build mosques we will build them anyway i have a vision in the future where every town and city in austria has a mosque with a minaret that people can see from the outside in. the judicial authorities upheld the complaint and ruled it again went beyond acceptable discussion forcing the freedom party to take it down from its website it's in the front of the numbers who played the game show that islam is a very important issue again thanks to us it was talked about in the first placing but the judicial system is meddling in politics and stopping a free discussion base of many say that ban has had the reverse effect there's not

even a single minute in styria and less than two percent of the population of muslim. the freedom party failed to get the single seat a below asked election now it's expected to triple its vote and put a dent in the ruling coalition of two centrist party to him a little bit here changing day in day whole system because i have to feeling it just so already locked in to what they like to just position themselves as like the the resistance of the truth in people which is kind of being suppressed by the by the status quo if the freedom party performs well it will follow the footsteps of recent successes by far i'd parties in sweden belgium and the netherlands. it appears that no longer can the centrist parties ignore the voices of those alone by islam and immigration or they risk being penalized at the ballot box either ordinary party gratz steria. this week the untapped riches of the

arctic dominated talks of an international forum here in moscow and the objective was to ensure that the competition for the billions of tons of oil and gas wouldn't overheat. if you stand alone you can survive in the arctic that's how russian premier have led him or putin explained but no country by itself can deal with the enormous challenges i had at the north pole he promised that what average treasures lie hidden and to be calais or buys will be no fighting over the top of the world the arctic needs secure sustainable management and if there's anybody who doesn't stop with that we often hear some futuristic forecasts predicting a battle for the arctic are responsible analysis shows the majority of the frightening scenarios on the future of the arctic have no grounds whatsoever their goal is to provoke clashes among the arctic states and so that those who make the predictions can fish for something in the murky waters but i am absolutely sure that all the existing problems including the ones over the continental shelf can be

resolved in a manner of partnership and according to the law the five know the neighbors who fish in these dark cold waters are russia canada the us norway and denmark at stake now are massive amounts of untapped oil and gas estimated to be over twenty percent of what the planet has to offer but many fear that a territorial crisis over the arctic which for millenia has been a vast quiet block of ice could suddenly start to boil and for the people who call this tranquil place home an invasion of industrialization is on the horizon for many years people thought the arctic was this frozen wasteland that no one lives here no one survives here is a place for polar bears and eagles and the reality is that the arctic is a vibrant place with rich natural resources rich human resources where people live

and survive daily that love it choose to live here but some of the history's saddest chapters were written on the white pages of these glass years during. the cold war it was one of the world's most militarized regions with nuclear missiles placed there the war has may have gone but oil and gas drills are likely to replace them environmentalist question just how safe the extraction technology will be in this stuff to retain especially with the gulf of mexico disaster and its lingering legacy so fresh in people's minds it's not just a question of often your call drudge in the arctic it's all show that we approach there's another responsible way i don't think anybody can approach the arctic simply from their point of view but let us exploit the resources i think everybody from charlotte shares your responsibility your store shelves your vitamins on the arctic nations but also to the entire world because if we measure the arctic and

the northern part of the world the consequences will be felt in asia and africa latin america it is rest of europe in the united states and elsewhere apart from anna chan territorial claims concerns were again raised that pumping for fuel in the world sort of preacher rate as it's sometimes known could speed up global warming a quarter of the world's untapped manage it resources all six states have become increasingly anxious to say their claims on to the look pretty piece of pie but russia says they'll be no fighting over the arctic fortunes and any territorial dispute what will result in just as informal and friendly atmosphere as that has been or expenditure of our t.v. moscow. and while the size of the arctics wealth remains a mystery there is little threat of a military conflict in the region that's according to morten unco an analyst on russian economics and politics for a norwegian engineering consultancy. it's important to stress that. these

researchers or the size of these resources are are extremely uncertain and in addition to that commercially ality of arctic resources is also very uncertain because it's it's far north it's technically very very. challenging to to extract the resources and it's far to market so so it's really no one really knows how much is at stake in the arctic but there is a conflict potential of course it's because it's it's a question about not only getting access to the resort to the potential resources but it's also a question about seeding in seeding or if you believe in the. national territorial claims but i still tend to tend to believe. that the uncertainties are so big that. we won't i agree with mr porter i don't think we will see any armed conflict over resources in the arctic. live from moscow this is

all venezuelans of voting in a crucial parliamentary election which is being seen as a test for the ruling party of president chavez after boycotting the previous poll in two thousand and five the opposition will try to win back seats to change the country's political course. hospice reports the ballot is likely to be dominated by a standoff between the rich and poor. it's an outstanding view from the top of one of the finest hotels in caracas venezuela. but on the ground there is a different reality a class war between the wealthy and the poor a battle that has been playing out here in venezuela since president chavez came to power in one thousand nine hundred eight it happened in almost every election and this one is no exception. it is what has politically mobilized both sides of the class divides leading to scenes as distinct as day.

and night. but the people of venezuela are calling one of the most important election this year what they care is that building the national assembly whoever gave the majority of the national assembly will have the authority to pass the laws in this country. and so the birds build into the shade trees both for and against the chavez system a system we have right now but it's not communism. it's working for poor people that's why people love chavez because we can if we can go to the neighborhood today we have free education we have preferred before chavez came to power the poor were marginalized in venezuela according to statistics from the venezuelan national statistics office poverty in this country has dropped by seventy percent in only fourteen years that i've been a sermon before chavez it was like

a long night the poor were excluded. from the country's wealth this represents our aspirations for freedom and emancipation because chavez sees people as human beings he fights for us but the opposition has different views also look at how it truly is not just destroyed venezuela has destroyed latin america has destroyed our values as citizens he has brought out the worst of us so if the worst means foreign money to help their cause it's not sitting well with most of the venezuelan people and government newspapers articles exposing hefty figures from u.s. government funded n.g.o.s are causing venezuelans to cry foul in this election and sustain the money is going directly to opposition forces and out of states make whatever they want not around the world and nobody said nothing so they are angry because we are saying something about that. however the opposition refuses to acknowledge there is a link between dollars pouring into this country and their campaigns are going to get rid of chavez through votes in the market that's why we're going to vote on

september twenty sixth against chavez a socialist communist project twenty first century socialism hasn't helped us it is her favorite post chavez elements also insist the opposition is composed of the wealthy elite with a prejudice towards majority poor. i hate discrimination and that is what the opposition does that's why people don't trust it and they discriminate good like they were there the whites over here the indians over there i am white powerful you know no no no from day to night both sides are behind two different messages. one calling for a balance in a parliament dominated by the governments parties and a more capitalist system. the other praising the political structure currently in place one with a socialist agenda because depending on which way the pendulum swings in this election the governing system of venezuela will ultimately follow john huff is r.t. could arcus venezuela. despite the end of u.s. combat operations in iraq fifty thousand american troops still remain there part of

their responsibility is to train the local police to cope with the militant threat but as artie's pulis discovered the task is far from finished and rising levels of violence. dark and dangerous and body armor does little to protect against the fact that they're not welcome here they're doing a dis about a patrol through one of the iraqi neighborhoods trying to prevent counterattack fire this is a bomb his team has stayed behind the mission providing training support and backup to the iraqi police when they get to our level we go over our operations order and planning for the actual missions we're going to do then we do a pretty brief then we actually go and execute these type missions that we're on now but the u.s. invasion to have a fully functioning iraqi security force did not protect safire ismail's husband four years ago he disappeared without a trace. he called me and said he was coming to pick me up i said the situation is

really bad don't come but he said now i have to come. safire's certain husbands did and all the families of tens of thousands of iraqis have also disappeared since two thousand and three human rights organizations put some of the blame with the local security forces trainees are not always the white candidates for the job a lot of them they have come from illiterate you know by ground zero or some of them they are just the from the tribes and clans some of them just because they are part of the political parties militias and so on and the problem is compounded by the limited training they given you can apply for the kinds of these. people being the effect that there's anything here. was a major effort to save the surge before the car bombs the same way in stone and i did. and it's a far cry from what is needed. they are not untrained but the training they receive

is not enough the americans only thought to create an iraqi army in two thousand and four by then it was too late because the terrorists had already infiltrated the . but with the increase of violence in iraq in recent. weeks the need for a competent domestic security force has never been great but whether or not the u.s. and iraq can mice to the challenge is still yet to be seen. on t baghdad. elite anti terror killing teams run by america's intelligence agency have now taken the u.s. led war beyond afghanistan well those are the claims in a new book called obama's wars by veteran journalist bob woodward woodward says that secret army of some three thousand afghan fighters sent to hunt al qaeda and the taliban have now infiltrated based on the revelation comes a book scandal pentagon officials borgen destroyed thousands of copies of an army reservists memoir about fighting in afghanistan over fears that it revealed

military secrets medical issues from the think tank project to pakistan in the twenty first century it says the death squads may become a major source of problems for both afghanistan and pakistan. but the united states continues to rely on warlords in afghanistan when when i heard about the this mercenary force of three thousand well trained of guns i still there is one part of the story that is still missing and that is where these three thousand of gun volunteers for this mercenary army came from and i have no doubt about the answer to this question and that is they came and they were recommended by some of the warlords and these warlords are really milking the u.s. government and the u.s. military they're making a lot of money and of course we all know the story of what happened in tora bora back in november and in december two thousand and one when it was some of bin laden actually escaped from tora bora thanks actually to the very elijah's of the u.s. military the of gun warlords who some of them according to reports took money and

let many almost one thousand al qaeda fighters really scape and this confirms actually that we will have problems about these militias and these mercenaries getting out of control at some point in the future. u.s. census figures show virgin america's poverty level is at its highest for one hundred years wars in iraq and afghanistan along with the turmoil of the financial crisis blame for the grim statistic artie's resident asks people on the streets of new york how bad they think the situation really is. the u.s. census bureau released a report indicating that about forty four million americans or one in seven live below the poverty level that's the highest it's been in over half of that jury what or who's to blame for this this week let's talk about that is that the prising not consider in obama's policy you know the pinkies the blame for where we're at right

now well he's partially to blame he's put the whole country and. so how are we going to get out of it. get rid of obama i mean we are fighting two wars and i think they are costing a lot of money so obviously that's having a significant effect on the economy and obama inherited these wars so i don't think we can blame him i've lost faith in the government i think it's just a power struggle in washington now that's what i think it's kind of like everyone saying what they're supposed to be saying for their party but no one's concerned about doing anything that's one way of putting it i suppose i would say the mortgage mortgage dilemma. loaning money that we don't have to people that can afford it to begin with and i think that was the beginning of it do you think that's going to turn around any time soon are we going to just see more. i hope i hope it turns around i think it's i think it's on the upswing there would be no middle class just poverty class and the rich class so i would agree with the it's so you think that the middle class is kind of disappearing in this country i think

it's definitely it's definitely. not so much disappearing but it's definitely not as big as it used to be i mean you know growing up my parents always said that the middle class was a lot bigger and times were a lot easier like a lot of people tend to react and take a lot of things for granted. well those things that we really have and you know we have a lot more than several other countries in this world and it's going to get complacent that things we're going to debate we should focus on what we do have instead of what we don't have a now so. the bottom line is that no matter. who or what if to blame for this high level of poverty let's just hope someone or something can do something about it. and i'll be back with the headlines in just a few moments. wealthy

british style. writers.